Foul or fowl?
foul is an adjective meaning “Covered with, or containing unclean matter; dirty”; fowl is a noun meaning “A bird hunted or kept for food, grouped into landfowl (order Galliformes), also…”. Use foul as an adjective and fowl as a noun (foul is also a noun: “A breach of the rules of a game, especially one involving…”). They sound the same (/faʊl/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) foul is about 11 times as common as fowl.
What is the difference between foul and fowl?
| foul | fowl | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, verb, noun | noun, verb, adjective |
| Meaning | Covered with, or containing unclean matter; dirty Obscene, vulgar or abusive To make dirty | A bird hunted or kept for food, grouped into landfowl (order Galliformes), also called gamefowl, and waterfowl (order Anseriformes: ducks, geese, swans, etc.)… To hunt fowl To use or traverse in pursuit of fowls |
| Example | This cloth is too foul to use as a duster | We took our guns and went fowling |
| Forms | fouler, foulest | fowls |
| Pronunciation | /faʊl/ /ˈfaʊ.əl/ | /faʊl/ /ˈfaʊ.əl/ |
| In writing | 11 times per million words | 1.0 times per million words |
Sources: foul and fowl in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of foul and fowl
foul
- 1
Covered with, or containing unclean matter; dirty
This cloth is too foul to use as a duster
- 2
To make dirty
to foul the face or hands with mire
- 3
A breach of the rules of a game, especially one involving inappropriate contact with an opposing player in order to gain an advantage; for example, tripping someone up in soccer, or contact of any…
- 4
Obscene, vulgar or abusive
The rascal spewed forth a series of foul words
- 5
To besmirch
He's fouled his reputation
- 6
A (usually accidental) contact between a bowler and the lane before the bowler has released the ball
- 7
Detestable, unpleasant, loathsome
He has a foul set of friends
- 8
To obstruct, block, or otherwise interfere with (something), for example by clogging (a drain, gun barrel, chimney, etc) or by being in the way of (a gunshot, etc)
The hair has fouled the drain
fowl
- 1
A bird hunted or kept for food, grouped into landfowl (order Galliformes), also called gamefowl, and waterfowl (order Anseriformes: ducks, geese, swans, etc.), which together form the clade…
- 2
To hunt fowl
We took our guns and went fowling
- 3
To use or traverse in pursuit of fowls
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, foul or fowl?
foul appears 11 times per million words; fowl 1.0 times per million words.
foul 11 times per million wordsfowl 1.0 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search foul vs fowl?
“foul vs fowl” is searched about 880 times a month on Google and 30 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“fowl vs foul”, “foul or fowl”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.